"Autonomous Self" in the Making of the "Future Citizen" in Taiwanese Curriculum Reforms

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining Futures: Culture and Literacy (Table 3)

Abstract

The paper is of a historical/cultural inquiry into an emerging idea of “autonomous self” associated with western modernities since Taiwan’s 1990s’ curriculum reform. “Autonomous self” is prioritized as one core competency in civic education and universalized to embody the “true” identity of “future citizen.” The paper unpacks the historical production and cultural principles of this self as a politics of curriculum that governs youth’s action into forming “future citizen” instrumental in actualizing political independence of Taiwan. The paper challenges ideas of “autonomous self” as homogeneous at all points, also further, that reform’s self (re)inscribes the very subjugation from which it strives to free. The paper makes broader arguments that notions of self are constituted by cultural sensitivity and historical contingencies.

Author

• Kai-Jung Hsiao, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Presenting Author